The Tree House
by grey-eyes17
Summary: Broken and defeated, Ally reverts to a childhood comfort when her life slowly falls apart. Will the truth get out? Or will Ally decide to keep this secret forever?
1. Chapter 1

**Okay, so I had initially started this story for another show, and had even posted the first chapter. But medical things happened and I kind of abandoned it simply because when I was able to finally continue, I had lost interest in that show. But now I'm here, and I wanted to continue this story, and I thought, "How about the show I'm currently obsessing over!" So here I am. And here this is. I apologize for it being short, but it's just the starter chapter and they'll progressively get longer once the story actually gets moving along. Enjoy!**

**I do not own anything.**

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My feet continue to scrape against the pavement as I slowly walk down the center of the street. They're cracked and bleeding and I can't stand the pain, but not because they hurt, but because the pain reminds me that I'm still alive. I don't want to be – not anymore – not now. I clutch my piano necklace between my fingers and tug on the chain enough to feel the pressure against the back of my neck, but not hard enough to break it. Although it wouldn't matter at this point. After tonight, I don't want to play anymore. I don't even want to remember that I can play. The events are disgustingly vivid in my memory and I don't know if I'll ever be able to rid them. Tears begin to cloud my vision as I glance down at the pavement to watch my feet, but also catch a glimpse of my dress.

My favorite dress.

It's ripped and torn and covered in dirt. A broken shoulder strap dangles off my right shoulder, but I'm in no mentality to care. I glance down at my bare feet and can't recall when my shoes came off, but I know that from the pain in my feet they've been gone most of walk. _Two miles so far; one more to go._ My entire body hurt and I'm sure bruises will form by morning. I feel naked. Lost. Abandoned. Nothing seems real. How could I have been so stupid?

As I turn onto the next street, I realize that I can't go home. Not looking the way I do. I fought my dad for so long to be able to go out tonight and coming home like this would make it so I could never leave the house again. _Maybe that wouldn't be so bad_. Suddenly becoming more distraught than I already was, my chest began heaving as my breathing became erratic. I stopped in the middle of the street clasping my necklace trying to figure out where I could go. Trish's was out of the question – she completely ditched me tonight. Dez, well, I just couldn't go to him for this. Tears began for form as I contemplated my options. Cassidy? No. Kira? Definitely not. I actually had nowhere to go but home. Beginning to cry harder, I continued my walk down the street while still clutching my necklace. Without warning, the pressure on the back of my neck ended, and my hand abruptly snapped downwards.

The chain broke.

I collapsed in the middle of the street, finally feeling completely defeated, and sobbed. Nothing was right anymore. Nothing was supposed to happen this way, but the pain I felt was real. With the breaking of a chain, everything became real. I grew up having the seemingly perfect life everyone always sees on TV, so why is everything so wrong? I had Elliot and he cheated on me. Then my mother left for Africa. Then there was the entire Austin fiasco. But now? Everything has fallen apart and I'm not sure I'll have the strength to put it back together again. Everyone's reality is my hell.

I rocked back and forth between my knees and heels before deciding I should just go home. My father is going to find out eventually and maybe he'll have even gone to bed. As I continued my stumbling and excruciatingly painful walk down the street, I stopped at an all too familiar house that I knew I was no longer welcome in. It was pitch dark, but that was expected in the middle of the night, but I knew he was still awake. He always was until about one in the morning, but his bedroom in on the other side. Maybe he'd understand?

_Stop Ally. He wants nothing to do with you._

I'm so pathetic right now standing in front of my ex best friend's house and debating on throwing rocks at his window. I know he'd let me in, but it wouldn't be because he wants to. Instead it'd be because he'd feel like he'd have to given how I look right now. Hell, a stranger would let me into their home with how I looked right now. I was a complete and definite mess. My clothes were barely staying on my body, my eyes are puffy from crying, my hair was probably disheveled to the point where it looks like a wig, I had bruises forming all over my body. Anyone would let me in.

But the houses are dark. The streets are barren and nobody's here to help.

Inhaling a deep breath, I turned and slowly continued on my way to my house coming to a stop at the end of his driveway. I can't go home. It would destroy what little there is left of my family. My parents may be divorced, but we're still all separating from each other. I unknowingly stare at the street lamp at the end of the road as I think of how disappointed my father is going to be with me. How furious my father will be. I can't go home.

But I have nowhere to go.

Once again, I turn back toward Austin's house but soon let my eyes wander.

_The tree house_.

Austin hadn't been in the treehouse in years, and we'd spend all of summer up there when we were younger. But that was the past, and he stopped going up once we reached high school. And if he never goes up it, he'd never know that I was there. I swiftly made my way back to the backyard, making sure than no one could see me. I didn't want to get caught and have to explain everything. Once I noticed that all the lights were off and no one was creepily staring out the windows, I climbed the ladder that entered the bottom of the treehouse as quietly as I could, not realizing that my broken necklace had dropped onto the pavement right next to Austin's car tire.

Once inside the tree house, I looked around and noticed that it wasn't as elaborate as I had remembered. There were no blankets or anything. Just a wooden floor covered in pollen and dead bugs. There was a window that faced the house and another that faced the woods lining his backyard, but it wasn't tall enough to stand in. There weren't toys that had been left behind. It literally was just an abandoned tree house. It was peaceful enough to where I figured I could get a decent amount of sleep, so I took off my torn cardigan and placed it on the floor so I could use it as a pillow and fell into a restless sleep.

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As the morning sun hit my face, I began to stir. Startled, it took me a minute to remember where I was, but as soon as I did, I smiled to myself. It was the first time I woke to a peaceful morning – no father screaming at me and no alarm clocks. I was sure I was late for school, but I didn't care. I wanted this. I needed this separation from reality, even if it was in Austin's backyard.

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**So that's chapter one! Let me know what you think. Should I continue?**


	2. Chapter 2

**I do not own anything.**

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Seeing that no cars were in the driveway, I slowly I climbed down the ladder to the tree house, unable to immediately stand from the amount of pain my body was in, especially my feet. I sat on the grass for fifteen minutes before mustering enough strength to stand up and make the two block journey to my own house. The first few steps were undoubtedly the worst and tears slowly crept their way down my cheeks. Because the backyards were connected, I was able to make the way to my house without stepping foot on the pavement, knowing I'd never make it to my house otherwise. Each step sent needle sharp pain through my body, but I had to go home.

I don't know how long it took – probably an hour? – but eventually I made it to my house and thankfully, my dad wasn't home. Once inside, I immediately dropped to the floor and sobbed. I cried for the amount of pain I was in. I cried for the fact that I was all alone. But mostly, I cried from everything that had transpired last night. I couldn't tell anyone, and I had no one to tell.

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Three days had passed, and I had managed to convince my dad to let me stay home from school still. The images from that night replayed in my head over and over to the point where I was physically ill, so food poisoning was easy to lie about to the school. My father had eyes though, so he knew I was lying. There was no hiding the bruising on my body, especially my face, and my feet were still swollen from the cuts. My dad knew not to question me until I was ready to talk about it – he was good like that.

Around 3:30pm, the doorbell rang. It took me some time to get off the couch, but not soon enough because the doorbell rang again.

"Just a minute!" I yelled, knowing it was going to take me a minute to get to the door.

"Hurry up, freak. I don't want to catch the plague," sneered an all too familiar voice from the other side of the door.

_Austin_. But why is he here?

I gripped the handle of the door, standing slightly behind it as I opened it, and gave him a questioning look. He stood there, looking annoyed as ever, with a stack of papers in his left hand and his backpack slung over his right shoulder. He didn't even notice me at first because he was too busy watching my neighbor, Ms. Ferrill, picking up her dogs poop.

"..May I help you..?" I carefully questioned him. He snapped his head toward me, and not soon enough did his eyes slightly widen. _Damn, I forgot about the bruises._ He looked me up and down before chuckling to himself.

"What happened to you, freak? Elliot beat you?" He snickered as he spoke, as if it was all a joke to him. But that wasn't a joke. It also wasn't the truth. Not anywhere near it. I would have much rather Elliot beat me than the events of a few nights ago.

Ignoring him, I asked him again. "What do you want Austin?" I refused to make eye contact with him. He didn't deserve it. We may have at one point been the best of friends, but that was almost two years ago. I know he still cared. He had to. No one can _not _care after having been as close as we had been years ago, but to put it simply, we had just grown apart. Although, it was much more dramatic than that.

"I'm supposed to give you this. It's the homework you've missed. You know? Sometimes it really sucks living right down the street from you. I was just getting used to not seeing your face," he sneered as he literally threw the papers into the door, and abruptly turning on his heel and marching down my front steps. "Enjoy!" he shouted over his shoulder.

"Thanks," I whispered as I watched him turn at the end of my driveway and disappeared beyond the tree line. Even though we weren't friends anymore, a part of me had wished that he had at least pretended to have cared instead of just ridiculing me about it. It's times like these where I needed my best friend. Trish hadn't even attempted to contact me since that night, and I couldn't understand why.

I quietly gathered the loose papers from the foyer floor and took them upstairs to begin working on them. No sense in falling even more behind in school than I already was.

* * *

Two weeks had passed since that night, and I still had yet to return to school. My father was starting to worry and the absentee administrator was beginning to question the excuses my father was giving them. Now, he was on to saying that I had had an allergic reaction to a medication the doctor had given me, but they were saying that if I were to miss any days this week, I needed a viable doctor's excuse. _Great_.

At least I wasn't really behind anymore. After that day, Austin would just leave the stack of papers under a rock on the porch. I guess he couldn't handle the five seconds he'd have to see me.

I stared at myself in the mirror making sure my bruises weren't visible since I had to go back to school today. I pressed my hands against my skinny jeans trying to get the clammy feeling to go away, but instead just made my hands feel gross. I didn't want to go back to school. I didn't want to face them. Trish still had yet to contact me, but it was okay since I had done the same to her. I was making sure that I had everything I needed, noticing that I had one detail that I was missing.

I searched my jewelry box, but couldn't find it. _WHERE IS IT._ My music necklace could not be missing. Dad had even bought a new chain for it and everything since I told him that the chain had randomly broken. Frantically, I searched my room, tears piercing my eyes as I realized that it was nowhere to be found. Giving up, I sighed in defeat as I grabbed my backpack out of the corner of my room, went downstairs, and began my journey to hell, aka school.

Upon entering the building, the hallway went silent as I passed through the door. Students stared, some whispered to each other, but most just stared. _This is going to be a long day_.

* * *

The end of the day couldn't have come soon enough. I spent every class alone and in the back while students discreetly looked back at me. I spent lunch alone in the corner of the hallway while students ignored my presence as they walked past. Trish avoided me. Dez avoided me, although he usually avoided me at school since he was friends with Austin. Cassidy would glare at me. Kira laughed at me.

_If only they knew._

Truth was, no one knows what happened that night. No one needed to know what happened that night. I wasn't going to talk about it, and no one could make me.

On my way home, tears streaked my face. I wasn't ready to go back. I didn't want to go back. It was clear that I wasn't welcome there. I had always been seen as a freak, and now whatever rumor was going around about me just made everything ten times worse. No one told me what was being said, but it was obvious something was going around with the way everyone had been staring and ignoring me. Even the teachers seemed to have been judging me.

I decided not to go straight home after school because I needed the time to think. I had to think of ways to try and convince myself to stay strong. _It'll all blow over_, I told myself. _Rumors are short lived in high school._ I rounded the street corners as I did circles around my house, and once again found myself outside the house of the one person who despised me the most.

I slowly found myself wandering into the backyard again and climbing up the ladder to the place I found to be my sanctuary. Most people would think that this is creepy: staying in your enemy's backyard without their knowledge, but I needed the escape and I wasn't going to find that at home. Once in the tree house, I heard a car pull up into the driveway. Most would find this to be a problem, but me? No. I found myself excited that I was going to be stuck up here for the next few hours.

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**I'm so sorry guys! Long story short, I moved, didn't have internet, and by the time I got it back, weeks had passed and I assumed that no one would be interested. Then I got TWO pm's within a week of each other asking if I was going to continue it, so here I am! I realize this chapter is kind of dry, but it was hard for me to get back into it. Plus, there was the time skip of two weeks because let's face it. Who wants to read about how Ally watched reruns of Gilmore Girls and Sex and the City for two weeks? Next one will be better since I used this one set up the story.**

**R&R! What do you think happened to Ally? And what do you think happened between her and Austin?**


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